Toxic

David Polochanin's op-ed "Fertilizing The Lawn Is A Fool's Game" [May 12] calls attention to the "excessive misuse of time" spent on promoting green, weedless and mole-free lawns. What he fails to note is the fact that many of the products used to bring about such lawns end in the suffix "-cide" meaning "kill. " While little yellow or white signs give warnings to avoid contact with such lawns for a given period of time, nothing prevents the mist or pellets from drifting onto neighbors' property.

It has begun. Swords are unsheathed and unflattering comments fill the air. Expect 15 weeks of recriminations between now and November, with the Republicans practicing on each other for next three weeks. Republican gubernatorial hopeful state Sen. John McKinney, R-Fairfield, got it started with a television ad full of buckshot. McKinney, who is not well-known in many parts of the state, criticizes incumbent Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's tax policies and then lets loose on Republican rival Thomas Foley for allegedly saying he would not try to cut spending.

One positive message in the latest federal report on toxic chemicals found in humans is that efforts to reduce exposure have proved effective. Researchers have long warned about health threats from lead, secondhand smoke and certain once-popular pesticides. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the level of harmful chemicals in blood and urine in those categories has dropped, sometimes substantially. Lead, for example, can damage children's brains.

Regarding the story "Auto Shop Owner Sues Pratt Over Site" [June 24, Business] hexavalent chromium is not green. It is a reddish color and is used in chromium electroplating. It is soluble in water, hot or cold. Trivalent chromium is green and is highly insoluble in hot or cold water. It is used in printing dyes and is not toxic. I had a plating company with 52 employees. We were in constant contact with hexavalent chromium five days a week. To my knowledge no one got sick. Jack Bass, West Hartford

A man accused of dumping toxic chemicals near a city reservoir and endangering the drinking water of more than 100,000 people has surrendered to police. Richard A. Richard, 27, of Waterbury, was charged with violating hazardous-waste disposal laws and trespassing. He walked into the police station late Wednesday after an arrest warrant was issued, police said Thursday. Richard is an independent construction contractor. He has admitted dumping the chemicals, but he said he didn't realize he was doing anything wrong, police said.

Each year hundreds of people and thousands of pets and wild animals are poisoned when they ingest as little as a couple of ounces of automotive antifreeze. So a less toxic antifreeze, the subject of a major national marketing campaign this season, is viewed by some as a welcome alternative. But the product -- already in use in at least a million vehicle radiators -- is getting an icy response from automakers. At least two companies, General Motors and Ford, have issued technical bulletins warning their dealers that the antifreeze -- marketed under the brand name Sierra -- has not been approved for use in their vehicles.

Weedkillers, paint stripper and cleansers that are a daily part of keeping up a home and lawn are often toxic and hard to dispose of, but usually there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative to these and other products. To help people learn about other options, Mansfield offers a traveling educational kit, available to the 12 towns that make up the regional recycling area served by the Mid- Northeast Recycling Operating Committee. Any civic, religious, educational or similar type of group in the 12 towns may borrow the kit. It comes with a manual that includes suggestions for customizing a program.

The town will have its annual collection Saturday of hazardous household materials. These items, which are considered too toxic to discard with regular trash, include bleaches, oil paints, thinners, solvents, oven cleaners and other chemicals. Residents can bring their wastes to the National Guard Armory from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for safe, legal disposal. The first 5 gallons or 20 pounds will be taken free. Thereafter, it costs $2 per gallon or $2 per 5 pounds. Only Southington residents can drop off items at the collection site.

Mayor Timothy Larson's staff has secured $3 million in federal money to combat the dangers of lead-based paint in 225 of East Hartford's older homes. East Hartford's aging housing, much of it built in the Pratt & Whitney boom decades ago, has a serious problem with toxic lead-based paint, town officials told the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The town applied for one of HUD's competitive grants to make old neighborhoods safer. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, whose brother Timothy Larson helped get the grant, wrote a supporting letter to the director of HUD's Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control office.

No one ever dares tell you that when you become a parent, you will be shot right through by hellish jolts of worry. A remembered dream of a baby forgotten -- in a toaster oven. An imagined scene of the baby falling down a stairwell. Or of your grieving young children at your funeral -- to mention a few of the less disturbing examples. Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell has a new book, "Worry: Controlling It and Using It Wisely" (Pantheon, $26). It is true, he confirms, that with parenthood, entirely new vistas of worry open.

By GREGORY B. HLADKY, ghladky@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, June 25, 2014

HARTFORD - Big box stores and major garden centers across the U.S. and Canada have been selling consumers plants labeled "bee-friendly" that have actually been treated with pesticides known to be toxic for bees, according to a report released Wednesday. The report, entitled "Gardeners Beware 2014,″ was written by the environmental consulting firm Pesticide Research Institute along with Friends of the Earth, a network of environmental advocates, and the Toxic Action Center, an organization focused on creating healthy communities..

By BILL LEUKHARDT, wleukhardt@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, June 5, 2014

BERLIN – A polluted vacant factory, now owned by the town through foreclosure, needs state review prior to its use as part of an ambitious renovation plan to build a downtown center surrounding the century-old train station. The former Pioneer Precision Products parcel on 889 Farmington Ave. is under state cleanup orders issued to the previous owner prior to town foreclosure in 2010. The old order needs to be rescinded so the town can submit updated remdiation plans proposed by a consulting engineer, town economic development director Jim Mahoney said Thursday.

SOUTHINGTON — For years, Curtiss Street has been the northern end of the 4-mile paved Rails-To-Trails pathway along an 1820s canal site. "I tend to walk this section the most," Betty Wisner of Southington said Wednesday as she turned at Curtiss to begin her walk back south for exercise. For years, it was unthinkable that the path could be extended north because of polluted Solvents Recovery industrial waste site just to the north on Lazy Lane. But new technology soon to be used on that four-acre parcel will bake the earth for five years and extract the estimated million pounds of toxic solvents trapped deep in the soil.

By BILL LEUKHARDT, wleukhardt@courant.com and The Hartford Courant, May 5, 2014

SOUTHINGTON - Hundreds of metal heater tubes installed in a polluted Lazy Lane industrial site will soon be used to boil an estimated million pounds of toxic solvents trapped a dozen feet and more underground. The tubes are designed to heat 55,000 cubic yards of tainted soil to 100 degrees Celsius, turning groundwater - and the solvents still trapped in the soil - into vapor that can be vacuumed up into a sealed collection system. It can then be treated on site. The thermal heating system is on the site of the long-closed Solvents Recovery company, land so fouled by industrial waste that in 1983 it was given federal Superfund status, which expedited cleanup efforts and increased federal oversight.

When the petroleum industry pushed to add lead to gasoline, health experts and scientists urged lawmakers not to allow it. Now our public officials, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, are being warned not to allow fracking and drilling waste to be brought to our state. Drill cuttings and fracking wastewater can be highly contaminated with radioactive radium 226, which travels through the air and water, accumulating in fish, animals and plant life.

There are few governmental responsibilities as profound as protecting the air and water that sustain life. When there is a question about air or water quality, government ought to err on the side of caution. That is why, until the system is safe beyond question, the state should ban the storage and disposal of fracking waste within Connecticut's borders. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the injection of water, chemicals and sand into underground rock formations to facilitate the release of gas and oil. Natural gas produced by fracking in several states has been a boon to U.S. energy production.

Nearly 40 years ago, a Michigan State University physicist observed that bacteria would not divide when exposed to electromagnetic fields. Eventually, Barnett Rosenberg discovered that it was the platinum on his electrodes that blocked cell division, a serendipitous observation that led to the development of cisplatin as a common treatment for testicular cancer. In the past quarter-century, the death rate from testicular cancer has dropped from nearly 100 percent to about 10 percent, said Christopher Orvig, chemistry professor at the University of British Columbia.

Lacking the staff and funding, state environmental officials say they have no way to regularly monitor or measure the approximately 11,000 pesticides registered for use in Connecticut. . A review of Connecticut's environmental records, based on a request under the state Freedom of Information Act, indicates that numerous licensed pesticide applicators often ignore legal requirements to provide annual reports on what chemicals they're using and how much. Others leave out critical information.

I was pleased to see The Courant article on Nov. 22, "Study: Chemicals In Plastics Linked To Early Term Births. " Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are over 84,000 chemicals in consumer products and only a fraction of those used in children's toys have been tested for safety. Over the last decades, a growing body of scientific research has linked exposure to these chemicals with the rise in many serious diseases, particularly in children. While many toys and products have made lives easier and fun, scientists now better understand the unintended consequences of toxic chemicals in them.